Green Room

Is Obama high?

WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal drug agents won’t pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes, the officials said.

Now, I don’t see this as necessarily a bad thing. The war on drugs when it comes to marijuana has been, in the opinion of many, a waste of resources for too little effect. Some want the entire operation ended, and others think it should only be focused on so-called “hard” drugs. Leaning more towards the latter, I’d like to give credit to the Justice Department for wasting less taxpayer dollars. However, to do so would be akin to giving credit to Michael Moore for leaving a salt packet uneaten at the table.

This is, after all, the same Justice Department that is busily setting up show trials for splashing water on people’s faces, but doesn’t dare investigate political corruption within its own ranks, nor even have the guts to close the camp they claim to hate so much. Somehow this pathetic gesture doesn’t envelop me in hopeychangey goodness.

Comments

hopefully they will legalize it 100 percent and tax it. we need revenue and pot is better for you than booze. most of america is in favor of legalization of pot so its not that big of a deal. but too many people in power still fear pot even though years of studys show they have nothing to be afraid of. we have other things to worry about like our defict and all these countrys trying to kick us while we are down. Pot legalization will keep money in the U.S. and not have it go to cartels in mexico and it will stop the growing in national forests that is destroying the land

If “free the weed” isn’t a national sentiment, then let the voters of each state say so. An honest, open conversation on the issue is impossible as long as it remains shrouded by “the law.”

Freedom, or not?

realityunwound on October 19, 2009 at 12:35 PM

I entirely agree, however my sentiment is that this is a minor drop of clean water in a bucketful of slime. If we can’t interrogate terrorists, or have to go around being labeled “right-wing extremists”, the ability to smoke pot – IF we qualify for medicinal purposes in one of those selected states – is practically no solace whatsoever.

my sentiment is that this is a minor drop of clean water in a bucketful of slime. If we can’t interrogate terrorists, or have to go around being labeled “right-wing extremists”, the ability to smoke pot – IF we qualify for medicinal purposes in one of those selected states – is practically no solace whatsoever.

the criminalization of drugs is one of the reasons it has exploded in use.

I don’t buy that. But even if I did:

It goes against every fiber of my freedom-loving being to criminalize drugs because “they’re bad.”

uknowmorethanme

What good have drugs ever done for individuals and society as a whole? Drugs, protitution, crime rates, they all go hand-in-hand: where there’s one there’s almost always the other. Even if that weren’t the case the last thing I want is to be surounded by a bunch of high idiots everywhere I go.